"Still, there are cold cases that the A.I.'s can't help with."
Zhou shrugged. "It's all moot, now. In any case, Secret Services man. What are you hoping to find?"
Patel was silent, but raised an eyebrow as if to say, You're smart. You work it out.
Zhou touched her chin with a finger. "Assuming Victoria was kidnapped from this room, and the investigation hasn't started yet, then there might also be a recording."
"Bingo!" exclaimed Patel.
Zhou looked at him quizzically. "Bingo?”
"Oh, sorry, it's an old 21st century term for a gambling game. Before your time."
"I see. So, like ‘Mahj!’"
“Mahj?”
“Oh, it’s from an old game from 2,500 years ago.” She waved a hand dismissively in the air. “Before your time.” Zhou looked at the screen, and it immediately unlocked for her. She peered at the processes. "The last complete room recording was half an hour ago. The current one is…disabled."
She squinted at Patel and he shrugged. She let it pass, then looked up at the ceiling. "A.I. Replay room recording from the previous hour. Authorization Admiral Wei Zhou."
"Confirmed," said the A.I.
For a moment there was silence, and then a shimmer filled the room. In the center, a short, pale, dark-haired woman in a blue, short-sleeved jumpsuit, appeared to be looking for something while circling the floor.
“Can I get everything?” asked Patel.
“Pause playback. Everything?”
“I want to access her brain waves, thought processes, everything. I want to rule out any chance she has been mentally taken over. We have been working on something together that is still top secret. If whoever took her read her thoughts…”
“Accessing recordings of any person’s thoughts is usually reserved for extreme cases.”
“When not on a mission. All thoughts are recorded as standard on vehicle that has a flash system. We’ve got years of Heartness’ thoughts on record as Captain.”
Zhou stared at Patel with a look of distaste.
Now, I know she’s a friend of yours,” he continued. “But flash jump records indicate a robot officer has taken an Admiral. If this is the start of another robot uprising, the whole of humanity could be affected.”
Zhou frowned at this new piece of information. “A robot? Any other nuggets I should know?”
Patel shrugged again as if to say, I don’t know what information to give you that you need to know.
She looked up at the ceiling. “A.I. Access entire recording of the appearance and disappearance of the boff and Admiral Heartness. Overlay reality with a holographic version, and give mental access to Heartness’ thoughts for me and… my guest. Brain wave vibration authorization Admiral Wei Zhou.”
“Confirmed,” said the A.I.
“Thank you, Wei,” said Patel.
Reality around them blurred and changed, and the recording began.
Chapter 2
Admiral Victoria Heartness got up from her desk at the darkening interior of her space station office and scratched at her newly extended long brown hair.
Something was wrong, if the raised hair on the back of her neck was any indication. The shadows in the room were lengthening, and it had nothing to do with the reflected light from Saturn just beyond her window.
Unless it was more to do with science, she thought. Static electricity? An increase in electrons causing eyes to perceive a slight darkening of the environment?
She looked down at her arms and could see the hair on the backs of them rising as well. What could cause that? She walked around the room. Was it getting lighter in the center?
The only thing possible was the controlled formation of an isolation field of a personal flash jump. And the slow speed suggested a longer jump
Then everything became clear to her. Someone was about to flash jump into her secure office, from outside the Solar System, illegally!
Florans coming back to get revenge?
Higher frequency aliens not realizing there are laws in Frequency Zero?
Doctor John Patel forgetting to forewarn?
Who or what else could it be?
Even her date had to meet her at the bar, and no one else was scheduled.
She went back to her monitor and quickly closed the file she had been working on, a secret services logo appearing on it before it disappeared. She briefly imagined white noise across her thoughts to erase anything related to the file, then she got up from her desk and walked around the room.
“Alright. Where are you? It doesn’t usually take this long to materialize. What are you waiting for?”
There was only one group that might be able slow the manifestation this much. The Frequency Research Institute. Those corporation types were highly likely to send a representative to beg. Nice of them to ring a doorbell first, she thought. She wondered who they would send. She hoped, if it was a he, then he’d be handsome.
She shielded her eyes as a bright oval of white light wiped the color from the room for a moment, and a chunky, one-meter-tall blue robot appeared.
To be more precise, a corporation’s leased robot officer.
She looked at it with dismay. Talk about a disappointment. “You sent a boff?” she said to whoever might be listening. “I guess you need to learn a thing or two about impressing someone.”
The robot swiveled its round eyes and cube head towards her. “Admiral Victoria Heartness identified. Your presence is required.”
“No. I already turned your request down. I have much more important things to do right now. There are plenty of other people in the System who can h...”
A piercing alarm began to sound across Space Station X-1a, and probably soon on the nearby bases on some of Saturn’s moons. Heartness swore as she remembered this kind of incursion would immediately activate any number of potential anti-foothold strategies.
She quickly ran back to her desk and swiped her finger on the panel inset, canceling them. Then she spoke to the ceiling. “A.I. Broadcast the false-alarm message.” As she stomped angrily back over to the robot, she barely heard the placating message of the A.I. echoing throughout the station.
“Why are you here?” she faced down the placid face of the boff with her hands on her hips. “What possible situation could have occurred just over four light years away that needs my personal attention right now? You’ve broken quite a number of laws coming here already.”
The boff stared impassively forward. Like an ancient robot toy for children, its cube-shaped head with round metal eyes, a wide mouth with painted teeth, and even white marks on the side to indicate ears, suggested something that no one could take too seriously.
A spring of antennae stretched across the top of its head, and its head sat atop a rectangular body with additional oversized buttons and dials. When everything the boff needed to be able to function could fit into a few thin cylinders on stilts, this bulky dysfunctional throwback was almost laughable. Despite herself, Heartness marveled at the retro construction, and especially liked the large off-switch on the back.
The boff’s simplistic communications system began to explain in a tenor lilt, even echoing apologetically. Heartness frowned at the program’s attempt to appeal to her emotional side.
“I apologize, Admiral Victoria Heartness, ma’am. But my licensor says that it is urgent. 27 scientists have disappeared from our base on Proxima Centauri B. Your presence is required.”
Heartness looked at it, exasperatedly. She was tired of corporations leasing robot officers, then not programming them correctly. “Find the answers. Fix the problem. That’s what you’re programmed for. You don’t need me.”
The boff stood silent. It had delivered its message and now it was waiting on a response to that message. Nothing else.
A simple machine.
Heartness hmphed, then walked around it, while she thought. What was she going to do with it? Would it leave when she said no? Would it hang around until she said yes? Mayb
e she could get Watanabe in to look at its programming. Was there anything special about it? No weapons. That was a good sign. Soft plastic, though it looked metal. She could see the slots where its arms and legs were connected, and easily detachable.
Everything was easily replaceable, and some of the parts could even operate by themselves in an emergency. Heartness knew the boff also contained some organic components to ensure that at some point it would have to break down. All robots had these fail-safes to make sure there was no chance of a permanent robot takeover. Even so, it was likely an army of these mechs might just temporarily win, as everyone attempting to fight them would be doubled over with laughter.
There wasn’t enough memory or software for the boff to become sentient, and it just did what it had to do. She stared thoughtfully at the off-switch on the back. Should she…?
No.
“Go back to where you came from, and tell the F.R.I that I’m responsible for over 1000 beings and their families here. I can’t leave every time you can’t do your jobs.”
“This is your final answer?” asked the boff.
“Yes. Tell your people…”
Like lightning, the boff’s right hand snapped out and grabbed Heartness’ arm, then its left slapped an override on Heartness’ flash band.
“What?” she yelled. “You can’t do this.” She smashed her fist down on the arm, but it just bounced back.
She tried to pull the arm off from its side, but the boff was already activating the return journey.
“No!” Heartness yelled, as the flash field enveloped them, and they disappeared.
Chapter 3
“27 scientists have disappeared, and Victoria has a date. Interesting.” Patel leant back in his chair with a curious look on his face, and steepled his fingers. “Very interesting.”
“Putting aside Victoria’s personal life for a moment, John, Proxibee is your jurisdiction. It’s my understanding that the Secret Services has a gravity and frequency research base there in association with the F.R.I. I realize you can’t personally monitor all S.S.’s 100 billion projects, but 27 scientists?” Zhou paused and leaned forward, looking Patel in the eye and smiling slightly. “You must be at least a little curious. With me now in charge of the station, perhaps you should check it out? You’re probably the best person for the job.”
Patel frowned. “Young lady, you might now be my superior on this base, but I’m over 150 years old. It is not possible for you to use subtle persuasion targeting my curiosity to get me off this space station quite so easily.”
Zhou grinned. “Only looking out for your best interests, of course. Your I.Q. is off the charts.” She leant back in her chair. “This station must be incredibly boring for you. You know. Really, really boring. After all, you did originally hire me so that you didn’t have any excuse to stay.” She tapped her chin. “I know, maybe you could go spelunking on Enceladus again until we find out some more information.”
Patel blinked. “Wait. You are doing it again!”
“Then, tell me why you’re still here? You’re practically maintaining all of human occupied space. Why hang around Space Station X-1a?”
Patel allowed a slight smile, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes. He then turned to the center of the room. “My turn to supply a recording, it seems. A.I. Display Saturn orbit survey 15th February 2129 video stream. Reference: Temporal Incursion. Slow the video to a speed we can comprehend. Authorization vibration Doctor John Patel.”
“Confirmed,” said the A.I. “Accessing. Displaying.”
An image materialized of Saturn and its rings, blurred and seemingly frozen. A green, circular target moved across the image then snapped at a tiny spot towards the center. It zoomed to show a floating object shooting away from them, leaving a black line through the rings in its wake.
The image shuddered as the drone adjusted its position, flashing closer. What previously looked like a glowing light now looked like it contained multiple stars flickering in and out of it.
“Is it alien?’ asked Zhou.
“One moment.”
The drone shot forward several times as the light flashed further away from it, but it quickly lost it.
The recording turned off.
“So, maybe it was a drone from another civilization,” offered Zhou. “You know, Earth has been visited by billions of drones from other civilizations in just the past thousand years. As UFO traffic officer monitoring Earth’s intersection, I should know.”
“Not exactly,” said Patel. “It was a piece of time. In fact, a piece of reversed time. When we retrieved the drone, we found it had become several minutes younger, just by being near it.”
“But, time doesn’t usually travel around in chunks. You can’t have time without space, or matter. They’re inseparable. And it looked nothing like a rogue, hyperdense black hole.”
Patel leant back. “An unsolved mystery. What concerns me is that, at that time, it wasn’t the only one. There were several occurrences of these pieces of time in the Solar system in 2129. Admittedly, most of them were on either side of the Oort cloud, apart from one we suspect caused something similar to a Tunguska event in Bimini. But one thing we know for sure is that they were all heading in one direction at close to the speed of light.”
Zhou thought for a second. “The date was just over four and a half years ago? And from the stars in the background…”
“They should be arriving at Proxima Centauri B any day now,” finished Patel. He got up off the chair. “Which might even explain the missing scientists. So, I hope you don’t mind if I hang about the station a bit longer?”
“But, what can we do about Victoria?”
“Well,” Patel said as he dissolved the door and exited. “I’m sure she can look after herself. And if she runs into a micro time particle, I guess she’ll get a bit younger!” He nodded goodbye to Zhou, and the door reformed behind him.
Zhou knew Patel was being cryptic again. If the drone only had to be near the object for less than a second to become a few minutes younger, she was sure Heartness wouldn’t just gain a few years.
She could be quickly reduced to a fertilized egg.
Chapter 4
The triangular shape flickered green along one side, then settled into a new stable orbit around Saturn, just above the rings. The Stellar Flash was the flagship of the Earth Council fleet, and the best that human and alien engineering could provide. It was the ultimate in interfrequency and interdimensional travel, and also had the ability to travel in time, given the right coordinates.
The Stellar Flash had recently returned from 2.5 million years ago in the Andromeda Galaxy. Unfortunately, it had had to come back the long way around, and it was a bit worse for wear as a result.
The alien crew of 300, with a main Center crew of 8, were mostly on leave. Having taken a space-fold time jump back to the present, and found their cabins full of pieces of iridium, some had returned to their planets, some had decided to visit Space Station X-1a, and some, like Captain Jonathan Hogart, had decided to do what he could on the ship.
Hogart was a pinkish-white, muscular man in his early-to-mid 40s, with short, dark-brown hair, and a sparkle in his eyes that suggested he was always about to make a joke. A few days ago, he had moved to the Stellar Flash, intent on doing things that robots, other crew members, the A.I. and various software programs were capable of doing without him.
“Jonathan, just go to Earth,” Heartness had said. “Hug some trees. Smell some flowers. Take a break.”
“After my recent experience on the Floran homeworld, plants are the last things I want to see.”
His look had been enough, and Heartness hadn’t said another word. But now, after a day on the ship, he was beginning to think he had made a mistake.
“So, A.I., you’re sure this console needs my help?”
“Yes, Captain,” came the soft and feminine Japanese-accented tones of the A.I. “Analysis indicates that the bolts holding that screen to the floo
r are loose. In fact, all the bolts are loose on all the stands in the center. Please tighten them.”
Hogart held the wrench and stared at the consoles. “I don’t know, A.I. Surely there are other more important things that need to be done.”
“Other areas are about to be fixed by the repair system. Center bolts are at the bottom of the list, so they won’t be done for a couple of days. Your help will enable them to be done faster.”
Hogart smiled. “Well, if you’re sure. I’d be happy to help. This is a lot better than watching over Raj’s shoulder as he unlocks another door.”
The A.I. remained silent.
“Right, then.” He lay down next to the first panel and set to work.
Just then an alarm began blaring.
Hogart sat bolt upright and hit his head on the side of the panel. “Ow!” He yelled. “A.I. Did I activate something?”
“It is a false alarm from the space station a short time ago. Disabling now.”
“Well, that’s a relief.” He looked about the Center Control room, not quite wanting to lie down and tighten bolts. Eight panels on stands were arranged facing outward to the wall and dome-ceiling screens.
In the center was the flash drive - two columns like a stalactite and a stalagmite stretched downward and upward, not quite meeting. The space in the middle generated the flash drive field.
Three exit doors were arranged equidistant around the circular area, and the surround screens were currently showing where they orbited above Saturn’s rings.
Hogart grinned at the sight of the colorful planet. It was hard to believe how huge Saturn really was. Even though Saturn’s day was a mere ten hours or so, it took them days to orbit it, and there was always something new to see.
Temporal Incursion Page 2
